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Deadly mushroom meal was made in a restaurant kitchen

Bianca Hall

Death Cap Mushroom ... ‘He’s super into fresh food, and that’s part of the problem here.' Photo: Marina Neil

THE New Year's Eve meal that contained death cap mushrooms and killed two people was prepared in a restaurant kitchen, Canberra health authorities said last night.

Chef Liu Jun, 38, who made the meal at the Chinese bistro in the Harmonie German Club, and a Chinese woman, Tsou Hsiang, 52, died from liver failure in a Sydney hospital while waiting for transplants.

Mystery surrounds another man, 51, who remains in Sydney's Royal Prince Alfred Hospital in a stable condition with death cap poisoning.

ACT Health initially said this man was part of the same group, but ACT police said this was not the case.

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Health authorities inspected the restaurant and said there was no risk of exposure to the public.

Friends of the chef, who had spent several years working in Australia, said he was obsessed with fresh food. He was also working to send money home to his wife and two children, a seven-year-old boy and a girl, 11.

A sign at the Chinese bistro where the meal was prepared read: ''The Chinese Bistro will be closed until further notice due to illness'', it was reported last night. Inside, the remains of a meal sat on a table next to a counter.

A statement from the club last night offered condolences ''to the family and friends of our colleagues who died recently after an unfortunate event of eating death cap mushrooms at a private meal.''

''That particular meal was prepared for a private meal and was not part of the public menu,'' it added. The Herald does not suggest the meal was available to the public.

Mr Liu's friends believe he picked the poisonous mushrooms in Braddon on his way home from work, mistaking them for the edible straw mushrooms used in Asian cooking.

The four friends at the dinner were not members of the same family. A man in his 30s ate a small amount and left hospital on Tuesday.

Mr Liu's close friend Tom O'Dea said the man had eaten only a tiny portion of the deadly meal because he had been nervous about eating wild mushrooms.

Another person at the dinner had not eaten any mushrooms, and was unaffected.

''Liu Jun, being a chef, he's super into fresh food, and that's part of the problem here,'' Mr O'Dea said. ''You really just don't expect that you make one mistake while eating something like that and be dead, and dead within 48 hours in the most horrible way.''

Death caps are among the world's most deadly mushrooms.

Mr O'Dea said Mr Liu's wife is trying to organise travel to Canberra, but without a passport or visa is enduring long bureaucratic fights to cremate her husband.

Miss Tsou had been in Canberra for several months on a tourist visa. Her adult son is said to be having trouble raising funds for airfares and funeral expenses.

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